Education: Graduate of El Modena High School in Orange. Earned a political science degree from University of Southern California in 1990. Received his law degree from Loyola Law School in 1997.

Carolyn Inmon

Family: Married with one son, two daughters and four grandchildren

Occupation: Retired teacher

Education: Graduated from California State University, Northridge, with a master's in speech in 1970. Earned her bachelor's in speech/English at UCLA in 1964.

Bob Vu

Family: Married with two sons and a daughter

Occupation: Educator and scientist

Education: Earned MBA at Chapman University and his California Teaching Credential at UCLA.

Studied business and computer science at Cal State Fullerton.

For more on these and other candidates, visit our voter guide at ocregister.com/go/voterguide.

The winner of Irvine Unified School District’s special election this Tuesday will serve the district as board member for just five months.

But in those five months, the board will be making some of its most important budget decisions. And at the end of those five months, the winning candidate this June will have an incumbent’s advantage over whoever runs in November.

The June primary coincides with a special election for Irvine Unified’s five-member school board. Three candidates are running for the seat: attorney Ira Glasky, retired teacher Carolyn Inmon and scientist Bob Vu.

THE LANDSCAPE

The candidates and circumstances that created this special election represent a newly politicized landscape of the school district of 30,000 students. Glasky was appointed in November when longtime board member Gavin Huntley-Fenner stepped down. At the time, the other members of the school board voted to appoint the seat instead of hold an election or keep it vacant until the November election.

But shortly after, residents who opposed the board’s decision to appoint gathered enough signatures on a petition to opt for a special election instead. The petition was endorsed by Irvine council members Beth Krom and Larry Agran, both of whom opposed the school board’s decision to build its fifth high school on a plot outside the Great Park. Glasky stepped down in January with the intention to run during this election.

The special election is expected to cost about $200,000 – considerably less than it would have cost if it didn’t coincide with the primary election. The winning candidate will spend about five monthson the job before the November election, when the permanent seat is up for another election. Candidates Vuand Inmon said it’s part of the democratic process. Glasky has stated that the money for the special election would be better spent on classrooms.

However, winning this election may be less about serving the Irvine Unified students during those five months, which are mostly in the summer. Winning on Tuesday means wearing the incumbent title in the November election. Incumbents won about 90 percent of Congress reelection in 2012, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Though elections for positions such as school board members typically don’t have as much of an incumbency advantage, having one’s occupation listed as “incumbent” on the November ballot could influence voters who don’t know much about the race, said UC Irvine political science professor Mark Petracca.

“One advantage comes from creating a voting cue,” he said. “In the same way that political parties are voting cues, you can walk into the polling booth and vote and you don’t need to know anything about the candidate if you don’t want to.”

Being the incumbent also means sitting in on important budgetary decisions, since the school district is now deciding how to spend its newly apportioned money from the state. This is the first year it will be allocating money from the state’s new funding formula, which requires that each district make a plan for how it will spend its money. The plan has already been drafted in Irvine, but the specifics are up to the board – including its newest member – this summer.

THE CANDIDATES

Glasky began raising money even before the special election became official, anticipating pushback after his appointment. The attorney for Santa Ana-based real estate developer Far West Industries has worked on the PTA and has two children in Irvine schools.

He brings legislative experience from working in the California state assembly and with the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce. He said his knowledge of school district policy and experience working on the district’s finance committee will be vital in the coming months, and after the November election as well.

“Certainly in terms of being a businessman, sitting on the finance committee and putting finances together, I have a leg up on the other candidates,” Glasky said. “I’m ready to hit the ground running.”

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